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One Put, One Call Option To Know About For CenturyLink

Consistently, one of the more popular stocks people enter into their stock options watchlist at Stock Options Channel is CenturyLink . So this week we highlight one interesting put contract, and one interesting call contract, from the January 2016 expiration for CTL.

Consistently, one of the more popular stocks people enter into their stock options watchlist at Stock Options Channel is CenturyLink (CTL). So this week we highlight one interesting put contract, and one interesting call contract, from the January 2016 expiration for CTL.The put contract our YieldBoost algorithm identified as particularly interesting, is at the $20 strike, which has a bid at the time of this writing of $1.25. Collecting that bid as the premium represents a 6.2% return against the $20 commitment, or a 3.2% annualized rate of return (at Stock Options Channel we call this the YieldBoost).

Selling a put does not give an investor access to CTL's upside potential the way owning shares would, because the put seller only ends up owning shares in the scenario where the contract is exercised. So unless CenturyLink, Inc. sees its shares fall 31.5% and the contract is exercised (resulting in a cost basis of $18.75 per share before broker commissions, subtracting the $1.25 from $20), the only upside to the put seller is from collecting that premium for the 3.2% annualized rate of return.

Turning to the other side of the option chain, we highlight one call contract of particular interest for the January 2016 expiration, for shareholders of CenturyLink, Inc. ( CTL) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 7.4% annualized dividend yield. Selling the covered call at the $35 strike and collecting the premium based on the 80 cents bid, annualizes to an additional 1.4% rate of return against the current stock price (this is what we at Stock Options Channel refer to as the YieldBoost), for a total of 8.8% annualized rate in the scenario where the stock is not called away. Any upside above $35 would be lost if the stock rises there and is called away, but CTL shares would have to climb 19.9% from current levels for that to occur, meaning that in the scenario where the stock is called, the shareholder has earned a 22.6% return from this trading level, in addition to any dividends collected before the stock was called.

The chart below shows the trailing twelve month trading history for CenturyLink, Inc., highlighting in green where the $20 strike is located relative to that history, and highlighting the $35 strike in red:

The chart above, and the stock's historical volatility, can be a helpful guide in combination with fundamental analysis to judge whether selling the January 2016 put or call options highlighted in this article deliver a rate of return that represents good reward for the risks. We calculate the trailing twelve month volatility for CenturyLink, Inc. (considering the last 251 trading day CTL historical stock prices using closing values, as well as today's price of $29.19) to be 32%.

In mid-afternoon trading on Monday, the put volume among S&P 500 components was 1.05M contracts, with call volume at 1.86M, for a put:call ratio of 0.56 so far for the day. Compared to the long-term median put:call ratio of .65, that represents high call volume relative to puts; in other words, buyers are showing a preference for calls in options trading so far today. Find out which 15 call and put options traders are talking about today.